Goshamahal Baradari, Moula-Ali Kaman, Christ College, Accountant General’s Office, Hyderabad Public School principal’s bungalow, and CCMB’s La Cones Campus are the recipients of the prestigious Intach Heritage Awards this year.
Representatives from the respective organisations located in the heritage buildings have received their awards at a function here on Thursday, from the hands of the chief guest and Vice-Chancellor of the Nalsar Law University Faizan Mustafa.
Addressing the gathering, Prof. Mustafa said heritage buildings and monuments represent composite culture, and not a particular religion. Calling to mind the demolition of Babri mosque, he said the only surviving piece of Sharqi School of architecture was brought down by an act of religious fundamentalism.
“Civilisations live and die, but even in the decline of civilisation, humanity gets something very, very beautiful,” he said, and cited as examples Mughal romanticism at the fag end of the dynasty, and the romanticism in English literary tradition during the onset of exploitative Industrial Revolution.
Quoting liberally from the Indian Constitution, he said there are provisions for conservation of heritage monuments in fundamental rights, directive principles, and also fundamental duties.
According to the Ancient Monuments Act, the government is duty-bound to conserve heritage structures.
Prof. Mustafa noted that for nearly 100 years after its establishment, Hyderabad did not have walls like other cities, probably because the Qutb Shahi rulers had not wanted to restrain the city within borders.
State Convenor of Intach M. Gopala Krishna said only 20 heritage monuments out of the 962 recognised by Unesco are from India.
With due care and conservation, this number should have been from Hyderabad alone, he noted.
Institution of excellence
Intach convenor P. Anuradha Reddy said the Trust was recognised as an “institution of excellence” and given a grant of Rs.100 crore by the Central Government.
In the event marking World Heritage Day, winners of the competition on architecture conducted by Intach in association with Sri Venkateswara College of Architecture were announced, and certificates were given away to the teams.
Teams from the School of Planning and Architecture from Vijayawada won the first and second prizes of the competition.
The third prize went to a team from the host college. The theme of the competition was ‘Adaptive Reuse of Mahboob Mansion Complex’.
A total of eight colleges of architecture from across the state participated.
